The Politics of Risk: A Human Rights Paradigm for Children’s Environmental Health Research

A human rights paradigm for environmental health research makes explicit the relationship between poor health and poverty, inequality, and social and political marginalization, and it aims at civic problem solving. In so doing, it incorporates support for community-based, participatory research and takes seriously the social responsibilities of researchers. For these reasons, a human rights approach may be better able than conventional bioethics to address the unique issues that arise in the context of pediatric environmental health research, particularly the place of environmental justice standards in research. At the same time, as illustrated by disagreements over the ethics of research into lead abatement methods, bringing a human rights paradigm to bear in the context of environmental health research requires resolving important tensions at its heart, particularly the inescapable tension between ethical ideals and political realities.